So I got myself a new Core i7-3770K, using the stock heatsink/fan, and a motherboard that doesn’t have VCore adjustments. I re-ran a bunch of benchmarks used in my earlier posts to measure Ivy Bridge’s performance, and Hyper-threading scaling, in comparison to earlier processors. The workloads were used in the my earlier tests:

There has been much speculation recently about why Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors seem to run significantly hotter than the previous-generation Sandy Bridge processors, despite the lowered TDP rating. One proposed explanation is that the thermal interface material between the silicon die and heat spreader was changed: Sandy Bridge processors soldered the heat spreader to the silicon, while Ivy Bridge processors use some silicone-like adhesive compound. I pop off the heat spreader and do some measurements. . . . → Read More: Ivy Bridge De-lidding

Intel uses Hyper-Threading (HT) as a feature for market segmentation: The desktop Core i5 processors differ from the Core i7 mainly by whether HT has been disabled, and Intel charges a significant price premium for the Core i7. Does the performance improvement of HT justify its cost? I test the performance of HT using a selection of cluster-type workloads. . . . → Read More: Hyper-Threading Performance

Here are some FPGA CAD benchmarks across a few relatively-modern machines. The original motivation was to figure out why VPR ran much slower on a Core 2 Xeon 5160 system than a desktop-class Core 2 Quad Q9550. A secondary goal is to measure the Core i7-980X @ 4215 MHz. I . . . → Read More: Core 2, Nehalem, FPGA CAD